Sunday, May 04, 2008

And the war drags on . . .

Inside the Sunday New York Times, Alissa J. Rubin's "U.S. Missiles Wound 28 Near Sadr City" documents Saturday's actions of "at least three 'precision-guided munitions'" which hit "a small mosque," "near a group of children," "damaging the hospital and a number of its ambulances". What's that part in international treaties about not attacking civilian populations? US Col Gerald O'Hara states, "We don't target civilians and regret any casualties," but I'm sure the wounded 'regret' the attack even more than those tossing around empty words.

From the article:

A doctor, who asked that his name not be used, said that nurses and doctors ran screaming as the blasts blew out hospital windows and shook the building.[. . .]Haider Abbas, 10, was brought to the hospital with what appeared to be a gaping hole in his back and shrapnel injuries across his stomach. The boy screamed in pain, barely able to answer a doctor's questions.

McClatchy's Shashank Bengali reports the hospital damaged was "[a] major hospital in Baghdad's Sadr City" and that 14 people were killed "in and around Sadry City" in "bloody street battles."

On the front page of the Times, James Risen covers a threat to US service members: contractors. The article's entitled "Despite Alert, Flawed Wiring Still Kills G.I.'s" which explains that "at least a dozen American military personnel have been electrocuted in Iraq" due to faulty wiring (lack of grounding of electrical wires) and the deaths "raise new questions about the oversight of contractors in the war zone". KBR is connected, of course. Their defense, in the article, is that they told the US military that their projects had faulty wiring and blamed it on "poorly trained Iraqis and Afghans paid just a few dollars a day." Which translates as, "We worked on the cheap and the finished product was unsafe, but, hey, not our fault, we gave a warning." Carmen Nolasco Duran's brother Marcos O. Nolasco died of electrocution "in Baiji in May 2004 while showering," states, "I don't feel like they did their job. They hired these contractors and yet they didn't go and double-check that the work was fine." From the article:

In 2006, John McLain was working as a KBR electrician at the United States regional embassy compound in Hilla, south of Baghdad, when he made a disturbing discovery. A KBR quality control inspector had recently cited employees there for failing to file quarterly ground resistance testing logs -- reports on whether the electrical wiring in the newly upgraded embassy building was properly grounded and safe for use.Mr. McLain soon realized that the testing was not being conducted, because the building had never been grounded, though KBR and at least one Iraqi subcontractor were supposed to install proper safeguards during a renovation the previous year. Mr. McLain said he sent a series of increasingly blunt memos and e-mail warnings about the safety hazards to KBR officials.

President George W. Bush last week asked Congress to approve $ 70 billion in funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the US fiscal year 2009, which begins on October 1, 2008. The Iraq war has already cost US taxpayers more than $ 500 billion dollars, and there is still no end in sight to the US's utterly illegal occupation of Iraq. According to congressional analysts, the eventual total cost of the Iraq war and the occupation could be as high as $ 1.5 trillion -- that's $ 1,500 billion. This cost does not include the cost of rebuilding Iraq's shattered infrastructure, which has been destroyed by a massive US bombing campaign and other military action. Once an oil-rich country with the best educational and medical infrastructure in the Middle East, Iraq has now been reduced to little more than an economic basket case. Even Baghdad, the capital, still gets only a few hours of electricity a day. Thousands of Iraqis continue to die each month as a result of the war and US occupation. According to a survey carried out by Britain's Opinion Research Business, since the beginning of the war in March 2003 up to the end of September 2007, over 1.2 million Iraqis have died violent deaths as a result of the conflict.

The targeting of officials and educators continued over the weekend in Baghdad as did the targeting of "Awakening" Council members, a child found an object on the street and picked it up only to discover it was a bomb, the US military announced more deaths and KBR did their job on the cheap because what's a few electrocutions -- US service members now, Iraqis after the US finally withdraws?

They're just there to try and make the people free,But the way that they're doing it, it don't seem like that to me.Just more blood-letting and misery and tearsThat this poor country's known for the last twenty years,And the war drags on.-- words and lyrics by Mick Softly (available on Donovan's Fairytale)

India's Economic Times notes a Baghdad bombing targeting the First Lady of Iraq, Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed, which wounded "four of her body guards but . . . [left] her unharmed." She's married to Jalal Talabani, the President of Iraq. BBC reports she "was travelling to a cultural festival at the city's National Theatre at the time. . . . Ms Hiro Ibrahim is a daughter of Ibrahim Ahmed, one of the founders of the Kurdish Democratic Party, and married Mr Talabani in 1970. She owns a media group and is a children's rights activist." Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 4 Baghdad roadside bombings resulted in the death of 1 Iraqi police officer and nine people wounded, a Baghdad car bombing wounded one person, Baghdad mortar attacks wounded two people, a Diyala Province bombing claimed the life of 1 "Awakening" Council member and left another wounded, a Salahuddin bombing claimed the lives of 2 women and a Mosul roadside bombing claimed 1 life. Yesterday McClatchy's Hussein Kadhim reported a Baghdad roadside bombing claimed 1 life and left eight people wounded, a Mosul roadside bombing wounded three people, a Kirkuk roadside bombing wounded three police officers and a flashlight bombing in Diyala Province wounded 7-year-old Mohammed Omran who found it and picked it up.

Shootings?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Dr. Ayaad Jafar ("assistant head of Baghdad University") was shot dead in Baghdad and two of the man's sons were left wounded in the attack, "journalist, lawyer and member of the Mosul Branch of the Independent Electoral Commission in Iraq" Sarwa Abdul Wahab was shot dead outside her home in Mosul and 2 other people were shot dead in Mosul today. On Sarwa Abdul Wahab, Canada's CBC reports she had received threatening text messages demanding she stop reporting and that she was apparently in a taxi and pulled from it in what may have been an attempted kidnapping before "she was shot twice in the head." Yesterday McClatchy's Hussein Kadhim reported amred fighting in Mosul resulted in 1 death.

About Me

We do not open attachments. Stop e-mailing them. Threats and abusive e-mail are not covered by any privacy rule. This isn't to the reporters at a certain paper (keep 'em coming, they are funny). This is for the likes of failed comics who think they can threaten via e-mails and then whine, "E-mails are supposed to be private." E-mail threats will be turned over to the FBI and they will be noted here with the names and anything I feel like quoting.
This also applies to anyone writing to complain about a friend of mine. That's not why the public account exists.